In a dark age on a burning planet, radical hope is not an easy assignment, but every decade or thereabouts, Bob Brown invites Australians to give it a crack. His Memo for a Saner World (2004) was followed by Optimism (2014), and his new release, Defiance, opens as a redux of both, with the cinematic story of the environmental campaign that changed Australia’s political contours.

By 1982, the damming of Tasmania’s Franklin River was a fait accompli, with construction underway and politicians beholden to the state’s Hydro-Electric Commission. Years of protest against damming, as well as petitions, lobbying and legal challenges, had met defeat. Blockades became criminalised, and many campaigners were demoralised by political chicanery, thuggish police tactics, hostile media, and hundreds of imprisonments.